You need to sort out your arguments and make separate cases for each.
At times, you seem to say that it is inherently wrong, or even unconstitutional, for government to take tax money and run schools.
At other times, when faced with the fact that there have been government-funded and -run schools since before the founding, you revert to seeming to say that it is MODERN public schools that are the problem, which implies that if we could go back to the way things were before, government schools would be okay.
At other times, still, you seem to say that all schools are inherently religious, and that it's inherently wrong for governments to run schools because they will either force everyone to accept secularism (which you identify, seemingly, as a religion in itself) or will only provide a lowest-common-denominator sort of religious education, or will wind up favoring one religion over another, offending those who don't accept that religion.
If you believe that government never has any business funding and running schools, then your objection to my post is irrelevant.
The Founders disagreed with you. That doesn't mean that they were right and you are wrong. But in that most Americans, especially of a conservative bent, give significant deference to the actions, thoughts, writings and philosophies of the Founders, it would at least be incumbent on you to 1) admit that you think the Founders were wrong and then 2) to provide a thorough-going philosophical explanation of why they were wrong and you were right. Minus the cant and the rant.
One final note: The state of Maryland began its journey toward many of the ideas that you assign to Horace Mann before Horace Mann became interested in education. Tendencies toward centralization, state control versus local control, standardization of curriculum, use of general tax revenue (including a state real property tax) to provide steady funding for public schools were incubating in Maryland before Mann really exploded on the scene. Your mistake is in seeing Mann as some interloper who came in and single-handedly (and perhaps deceptively?) took American public education off its previous proper course and defiled and degraded it. Horace Mann was merely the most articulate voice for an educational movement that had been developing and brewing throughout the United States during the time beginning prior to Mann's involvement in education. Whether they were good ideas or not, whether you disagree with these ideas or not, they were what most folks wanted.
sitetest
The way wintertime talks, you almost expect he/she to be about 150-200 years old. Wintertime, sounds like you’re not willing to get into the 1950s mentality yet, even though we are 60 years beyond that even. Get with the times my friend.
Re: It is inherently wrong for government to tax citizens for education.
Yes, I believe that, but I doubt to see that Nirvana in my lifetime. Vouchers, tax credits, and charters are better than what we have now which is government owned and run price-fixed cartel schools.
Re: Government run schools since the settlement of this nation by Europeans
I do not believe one group of politically powerful people should tax others to support their non-neutral cultural, religious, and political worldview, and this is what all schools do.
Re: Modern Government schooling
I make this distinction because Horace Mann's philosophy, the passage of compulsory school attendance laws ( mid 1800s to early 1900s) and compulsory state provision of schooling, is the philosophic and structural foundation upon which our modern system of government schooling rests.
Re: All schooling is inherently religious
It is. All schools must choose between a godless or God-centered worldview. This religiously non-neutral worldview will drive the content of curriculum and school policies which, in turn, can not be religiously neutral. It is for this reason that we must begin the process of privatizing education. Government shouldn't be in the business of putting its imprimatur on an education that can not be religiously neutral.
Re: Founders
They would be appalled to see the outcome of compulsory government owned and run, socialist-funded and single-payer schooling. Surely, they wished to see a population that was literate, numerate, and well-educated, but government schooling is not providing an education. Our appalling illiteracy and innumeracy rates are proof enough of that.
I stand with our Founders. I too would like to see a well-educated citizenry. This is one of the best reasons to begin the process of privatizing the delivery of schooling.
From what I've read, Mann went to Prussia to study its school system, but left before seeing it in operation. Nevertheless, he issued a glowing report to the Boston School Committee. In his preceeding report, he advocated the pseudo-science of phrenology.
Tax-funded schooling was a minor institution prior to the advent of compulsory attendance laws, the origins of which were based in anti-Catholicism. Advocates sought to force the children of poor, Boston, Irish Catholic immigrants into the Protestant government schools. This was at the height of the Know Nothing movement.
Catholic bishops reacted by forming Catholic schools. Unfortunately, these schools adopted the Prussian pedagogical methodology in vogue at the time, which is why they are similar in many destructive ways to government schools today.